Letters
Letters A Case of Bias The Monthly’s decision to have my book on economic espionage, War By Other Means, reviewed by Robert Dreyfuss (‘X Thin Case,” April 1997) was something like sending a...
...Or is it self-evident that such a tax would so gravely harm the job and wealth creation efforts of Edison, Bell, Gates et al...
...This might seem a small, niggling point to some people, but I expected The Washington Monthly to recognize the difference...
...On the matter of taxing wealth, which David Ignatius opposes, we agree with Greider: This magazine has favored socking it to the wealthyeom oi~re arliest days...
...I agree that bleakness is not in order, but let’s get real-there are enormous social, economic, and political challenges that face the country that far surpass balanced budget issues...
...On what planet has he been residing...
...What is an absolute no-no is to support political candidates...
...Simply unplug the broadcasting stations (both television and radio) and let everyone get their television (and soon, radio) either by direct broadcast satellite or by cable...
...Or are we baby boomers doomed to watch the bottom fall out of our carefully accumulated nest eggs from the sheer demographic weight of our numbers...
...But what they do and what Gingrich did are as different as obeying the law and disobeying it...
...I believe he missed the critical difference...
...My bank savings account currently pays 2.52 percent interest...
...We get the message...
...If Ignatius really does have “persuasive” evidence against a (non-confiscatory) wealth tax, he would do well to share it with us...
...Basically you paid someone to recycle his old war stories in a review attacking my book for making ‘A Thin Case...
...in land...
...Robert Samuelson went down this road with his surrealistic The Good L$e and Its Discontents...
...Unfortunately, Walsh argues against himself at times...
...amplified productivity, lowered costs, created jobs and wealth on an astounding scale...
...HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY MICHAEL CAMPILONGO FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL TO THE OFFICE OF THE NUCLEAR WASTE NEGOTIATOR Damned if We Do...
...LORRAINE ROHLIK Jessup, MD Broadcast Blues Brian Lamb‘s article “An Accidental Victim” (March 1997) shows the effects of micromanagement by Congress...
...In the March “Tilting” column, he says that “many liberal organizations” do the same thing that Newt Gingrich did in using taxexempt non-profit funds for political purposes...
...Would you like to buy a bridge...
...intelligence agencies use economic intelligence against countries like Japan and France before my book-which presents the U.S...
...MARC DESMOND Brooklyn, NY Apples and Oranges I so seldom disagree with Charles Peters that I feel obligated to take issue when I do...
...Perhaps the last economic laugh will be on us-we can never retire...
...plus books by George Kennan, Robert Kuttner, Jay McLeod, Lawrence Levine, Lester Thurow, Edward Luttwak, et al...
...You discount all of these and crunch some numbers that are embarrassingly off point...
...The government securities fund of my 401k plan earned 6 percent last year while the stock fund earned quadruple that...
...The others either give in or leave...
...Dreyfuss wrote three axegrinding pieces about how allegedly villainous US...
...JOHN FIALKA Washington, D.C...
...Letters A Case of Bias The Monthly’s decision to have my book on economic espionage, War By Other Means, reviewed by Robert Dreyfuss (‘X Thin Case,” April 1997) was something like sending a Union sympathizer to the Ku Klux Klan for a hearing...
...Read, if you haven’t already, Mark Gerzon’s A House Divided (reviewed in the same issue), Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace, Jonathan Rieder’s Canarsie...
...Do we...
...Where is the acuity of The Promised Land, et al...
...why travel that pollyanish path...
...Fortunately, in this case, the problem can be remedied very easily...
...But as you point out more than once in your article, we feel we have no choice...
...1997) and we’re as nervous as you say we ought to be...
...6,000 annually, on average) is unfair to the public schools...
...And even the wages of lay faculty are held down by court rulings that exempt religious schools from the labor laws...
...Invest in gold...
...RICHARD H. STALLINGS FORMER MEMBER, U.S...
...ERWIN FUGHS Seattle, WA...
...In fact, the question that comes to mind on reading your article is: Where has Lemann been living...
...largely as a victim-ever hit print...
...Walsh‘s mention of the further technological developments needed suggests that the task may be unmanageable, even if more people are excepted from civil service rules to acconiplish it...
...Why not take some time off and do some more research and reflection and avoid embarrassing yourself again...
...The reason for this is that the lunatic fringe are the fanatics who are willing to fight tooth and nail for “not one inch...
...March 1997) Was Lemann on deadline with a topic that had bedeviled him...
...That is what Newt Gingrich is censured and fined for...
...JOHN PIERRE AMEER Cambridge, MA Parochial Sweatshops Parochial schools may well be more efficient than public schools, but using the raw per-pupil expense figures ($2,400 vs...
...Not because we’re Marxists but becailse we’re FDR Democrats who believe that the Yich who have received such disp roportionate benefits from this coun t7 y should repay it disproportionately What were you possibly thinking of in Nicholas Lemann’s article, “It’s Not As Bad As You Think It Is...
...In fact, I would argue they should be encouraged to do so...
...I am not a fan of MotherJones or The Natioiz, although I find the American Prospect sympathetic, if sometimes long-winded...
...Alex Kotlowitz’s There A7-e No Children Here...
...He criticizes private contractors for absorbing DOE money to train for tasks for which they are ostensibly hired, then advocates hiring more technical experts from private industry...
...What are we to do...
...ADAM YARMOLINSKY, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY University of Maryland Baltimore Campus Baltimore, MD Mixed Messages “The DOE’S Dirty Laundry” (March 1997) by Simon Walsh implies the need for a reverse Manhattan Project to clean up nuclear weapons waste...
...But what Marx in fact was chiefly trying to understand was the astounding creation of wealth in his day-and why, despite such wealth creation, the vast majority of people had very little wealth, still the global norm today...
...That being said, we apologize to Fialkafor not knowing that the author of his review had a previosuly well-established position that he 07- we should have disclosed...
...Most of the literature on this subject consists of unsubstantiated war stories, and Dreyfuss’s pieces in Mother 3ones and elsewhere are no exception, citing “sources in the intelligence community,” “a former United States intelligence official,” and “a recent CIA retiree?’ While you may not agree with my stories, they are documented with over 400 footnotes...
...We watched the Frontline program and read your article “Betting It AI1 on the Market,” (Jan./Feb...
...For Charles Peters to quote those unadjusted figures (“Tilting at Windmills,” April 1997) is, implicitly, to argue that public school teachers should be paid sweatshop wages...
...Second, Ignatius describes Greider’s argument for “taxes on wealth” as one of many “rigidities” that are “likely to make things worse...
...JACK HALEY Warner Robins, GA Going to Extremes The ACLU (“Tilting at Windmills,” April 1997) is a perfect example of one of those things I learned during my perambulations, which is this: Almost every movement-political, pseudo-religious, or otherwise-will be taken over sooner or later by its lunatic fringe, which will turn it from a perfectly valid and respectable outfit into a laughing stock...
...After all, the Catholic school system in particular is staffed, in part, by members of religious orders, who don’t receive regular teachers’ salaries...
...Discreetly squirrel away our stock dividends in money markets with one hand while we continue to dollar-cost-average with the other...
...Bringing more expertise in-house is worthwhile, especially if it is joined to recent initiatives to make nuclear waste cleanup policy work and an evaluation of reasons it has not...
...OK, OK, Joseph Nocera...
...And how does that square with his selfadmitted obsession with recruiting better people into government...
...JONATHAN S. SHEFFTZ Cambridge, MA The editor responds: Because this magazine has such high regardfor bothJohn Fialka and William Greider, we did not publish reviews that were Critical of their books without making sure we agreed with the main thrust of each...
...Non-profits are not barred by law or by enlightened public policy from arguing political issues, or from using a fraction (up to 20 percent under some circumstances) of their funds directly for lobbying...
...And by what peculiar stretch of the imagination could he write that America’s social and economic problems are heavily concentrated at the lower end of the society...
...First, Ignatius claims Marx “didn’t reckon on technological ingenuity,” having written before the inventions of Edison, Bell, Gates et al...
...In Defense of Marx Without commenting at length on the David Ignatius review of William Greider’s One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capital (“The Marx Mistake,” April 1997), I do wish to make two points...
Vol. 29 • May 1997 • No. 5
